This disclosure relates generally to the monitoring and diagnosing of heat exchanger system health and more particularly to the use of intelligent balls for enabling this monitoring and diagnosing.
The most commonly practiced method for assessing the state of a heat exchanger, and in particular the individual tubes that come in contact with the working fluid, is to open the unit and examine each individual tube manually. This is a highly labor-intensive process and leads to substantial down time and associated costs as the unit is taken apart and examined.
Specific measurements used during tube inspection include eddy current sensors and ultrasonic probes, as well as simple video inspection with a fiberscope or video camera. These instruments, which are inserted manually into the tubes one at a time, give an indication of wall thinning and cracking.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,863,820, issued to Laursen et al. entitled, “MEASUREMENT DEVICE FOR HEAT EXCHANGER AND PROCESS FOR MEASURING PERFORMANCE OF A HEAT EXCHANGER,” discloses a temperature measurement device in combination with a furnace heat exchanger. An instrumented heat tracer sensor is launched into the heat exchanger which records the temperature of the fluid and performance at data points along the length of the heat exchanger. If a spike in the temperature is measured and recorded, since the speed of the heat tracer sensor is known, the location of the temperature increase is known which infers a burn through in the furnace. A three way valve includes a retrieve port, a chamber port, and a launch port. A small sensor control pump and a large heat exchanger flow pump propel the heat tracer sensor through the system. A plastic chamber retains the heat tracer sensor for interrogation and downloading information when the sensor is not in use in the heat exchanger. A control station communicates with the heat tracer sensor and extracts the stored temperature data therefrom. The Laursen patent does not describe assessing comprehensive heat exchanger health, assessing flow rates inside of exchanger tubes, or determining in which tube temperature measurements are taken.